My Home In The Stars
by CoolKidConan
Summary: One-shot! The Doctor and Clara take their daughter to see the stars for the first time! Inspire by a Tumblr post! Give it a try!


To this very day, the Doctor still thought _she_ was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The TARDIS had whooshed and shaken the day he had declared that, as if saying that description was only meant for her.

"Oh, old girl, don't be jealous. You know you're still precious to me." He told her, and that seemed to calm her down.

Of course what the Doctor felt for the TARDIS could not compare to what he felt for that little bright bundle that Clara held in her arms. When the little bundle had just been born, a huge name debate began between the Doctor and Clara. Despite the Doctor's constant nagging that a name like Moon or Supernova might be better, Clara decided there was no way they were calling their daughter Supernova.

Eventually, they decided on Ellie to honor Clara's mother, although the Doctor would always come up with strange nicknames for her, like soufflé girl two, or star. He avoided calling her sweetie though, his memory of River's departure still fresh in his mind. Nicknames, Clara had discovered, where a big thing for him. He'd always refer to people he cared about with nicknames. He called her Soufflé Girl so many times she had lost count, and he often talked about The Last Centurion, The Most Important Woman In The Universe, or The Girl Who Waited. She was used to his affectionate alternative names, but the day he called little Ellie 'his entire universe', Clara had to almost choke down the tears of joy that welled up in her eyes.

Ellie had been born as something similar to River. She was half human, half Time Lord, with two hearts but no regenerations. At first, Clara wasn't too sure about raising a child in a blue police box time machine that was bigger on the inside, but when Ellie giggled while she signaled with her little index finger at one of the things written in Gallifreyan in the TARDIS console, she thought perhaps a time vortex wasn't a bad place to call home. However, when a Dalek ship almost crashed into the TARDIS and killed all of them, her doubts continued growing.

The Doctor and her had discussed this many times, but he would always say that the TARDIS was the best home there was. Despite his constant reassuring, Clara was still unsure as to whether she should stay and raise her daughter here or ask the Doctor to leave her back in London where she could take care of Ellie and leave him to his timey wimey adventures.

"Clara Oswald," he had told her the first time she had proposed that idea to him. "Never in my entire existence will I leave you on your own if I can do something about it. And much less with Ellie." And the way he hugged her and whispered that in her ear comforted Clara. "And!" he had suddenly exclaimed as he disentangled himself from their embrace and held her by the shoulders. "I will prove to you that Ellie is happy here!" he said, with one of his mad but beautifully idiotic smiles.

"You're going to what?" Clara had asked, with one eyebrow raised.

"I will prove to you that Ellie loves this place!" he exclaimed, running to the console and flicking switches and pulling levers.

"Now? She's just a baby, Doctor!" Clara shouted back at him. "We're not taking her to an alien planet or anything of the likes."

"Why not?" the Doctor pouted, stopping his actions midway through the trip.

"Because," Clara deadpanned "I don't want my daughter to be eaten by a sontaran!"

"Oi, sontarans can be nice, you met Strax!" the Doctor fought back.

"I am not letting my baby daughter out in space!" Clara shot back.

"Fine!" the Doctor replied, somewhat angered. "What about just the sun?"

"Oh, so she can get fried to death?"

"The moon then! The moon's cold and nice! No frying to death, just bouncing. You know? Big step for humanity and all that!"

"No! No space until she's at least one!" Clara shouted at him, hoping to end the discussion. And it did, because the Doctor pouted, murmured some things in an unknown language and stopped the TARDIS from taking into flight.

But it had been a year since then, and on the day of Ellie's first birthday, the Doctor was giddier than ever. He had been rambling on to Clara about all the places he could take Ellie to. They could go see the lost moon of Poosh, or even go back to Akhaten for the Festival of Offerings. They could go to see the discovery of America, or even the creation of the universe. He rambled on and on for hours about the different ideas he had been thinking about for the past year, and Clara just smiled at how excited he was to show their daughter everything he had been living all those years.

"Alright then, where to?" he asked her, with a bright smile from eye to eye. Clara giggled at his childlike actions.

"I don't know, you're the Time Lord. You choose. I'm going to go get her." Clara said, and she disappeared into one of the corridors of the TARDIS. Only moments later she was back, holding Ellie in her arms and smiling.

Ellie was like this beautiful mixture of both of them. She had big green eyes and short brown hair that had been decorated with a TARDIS blue bow that matched her TARDIS blue dress. When the Doctor saw them reach the console he smiled at both of them lovingly and kissed Ellie on the forehead.

"Look at how pretty you look!" he said, taking her from Clara's arms. "Bowties are cool, aren't they?" he said, and his daughter giggled. "What do you say, Ellie? Ready to see the universe?" he almost whispered to her, and when she smiled at him he smiled back, handed her back to Clara and began their materialization wherever it was that he had chosen.

"Where to?" Clara asked him, getting closer to him.

"The last corner of the universe!" he exclaimed, looking at her with a bright smile.

"The what now?" Clara asked.

"It is the best place in the universe to see the stars. It's full of constellations that have never even been discovered, and you can actually even swim between them!" he exclaimed. "Aha!" he shouted satisfactorily. "And here we are! Are you ready?" he asked Clara. She nodded with a smile, and she wondered why she was so nervous. She had been doing this with him for so long it seemed stupid to get so worked up about it now. Except now it was different. Because now they had Ellie.

The Doctor guided Clara, who was holding Ellie in her arms, towards the door of the TARDIS, his hand positioned at the small of her back. Ellie had her hands in her mouth, and her eyes were open wide in anticipation.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked Clara before opening the doors. She looked at him with a smile and kissed him deeply.

"Show me the stars, chin boy."

And when the Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS, both Clara and Ellie were left speechless. It was actually like he had described it. Stars were everywhere; blinking lights against the dark sky that shined at them, as if welcoming them to the universe. Constellations made shapes of bears, and dragons and weird aliens that the Doctor seemed to have met. It was like a huge sea of stars, some brand new and some so ancient they had already died.

"So? What do you think?" the Doctor whispered to Clara, as if he was to disturb the stillness of it all if he was to speak loudly.

"Look at this… This… It's beautiful." She said to him, their faces merely inches from one another. He smiled at her and she smiled back, pecked him, and then turned to Ellie in her arms. Her eyes were open wide and the stars reflected in such a way that it seemed like her eyes were actually made of them. She seemed so surprised and impressed by that and yet not afraid at all. It was like, in the middle of all the magnificence of the stars, she fit right in.

"Look at all of this, Ellie." The Doctor began. "Millions and millions of stars welcoming you, shining only for you. This is what it's like for you and for us. This is where we live. Right there, on that corner over there, that's the solar system. And in one of those planets is where I met your mom two times. Then over there, more to the left, do you see?" he said, signaling with his index fingers. "That's where the asylum used to be. That's the first time I met her. And then there, almost on the other side of the universe, that's the constellation of Kasterborous, Ellie. Oh, it used to be such a great place. Gallifrey was there. It was once a place of happiness and joy…" he said, and when Clara felt he was feeling the pain of abandoning everyone, she took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it for support. "This is where you're from, Ellie. This is what I dreamed of when I was little. This is what you'll see when you wake up every day. And I promise you, nothing will ever prevent you from waking up and never seeing them again. Because I will _never _let that happen." He said, his eyes soft as he stared in his daughter's own eyes. She smiled at him.

"So, Ellie. What do you think of this? Do you like it?" Clara asked her softly. It took Ellie a while to answer, but then she extended her little left arm to the outside of the TARDIS, opening and closing her hand as if trying to grasp the stars and, for the first time ever, uttered a word.

"Home." She said, and then let out a squeal of happiness. The Doctor and Clara looked at each other and smiled tenderly. The Doctor then looked back at Ellie, kissed her forehead and said,

"Yes, Ellie. This is our home."


End file.
